


Waxing Philosophical

by carpe_canis



Series: Rayllum Week 2019 [4]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Rayllum Week 2019 (The Dragon Prince)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22929994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpe_canis/pseuds/carpe_canis
Summary: (A very belated) Rayllum Week 2019 Day 4 - Moonlight (written before Season 3)
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Rayllum Week 2019 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1330376
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	Waxing Philosophical

**Author's Note:**

> Hooooooooly crap. So, obviously, I did not manage to stick to an even remotely timely schedule for the rest of this event, and a LOT has come and gone since these prompts. I had started them well before season 3, and left them moldering on my thumb drive with the intent to come back and clean them up. 
> 
> Well, rereading this one, I find I'm actually pretty content where I left it, so rather than let it sit where I'll realistically never get around to it again, I'm tossing it up on here.

There are times, like tonight, when Callum feels the pull of melancholy and finds himself succumbing to it. His mind seems both too full and empty at the same time, and the futility of trying to focus gives way to a generic mope that he begrudges himself, in turn making him feel even lower.

It taints his vision, and even though he is aware of this, it is so hard to not react accordingly to everything, and everyone, around him. When he’d been home, he had found ways to cope. His brother’s effervescent energy provided good distraction most of the time. Sometimes he could go find Claudia, or Soren, and their familiar banter could occupy his present. 

Now, his brother feels so far away he may as well be on another world. Thoughts of Soren and Claudia cause his chest to tighten in pain; the knowledge of their betrayal a wound he knew he would be nursing for a long time. His mother was long lost to him, and now Harrow was too. The knowledge that he was on a quest to change fate, to stop a war, seemed faraway and impossible.

\-----

Rayla feels her best when the moon is full, but for whatever reason, tonight she feels a charge coursing through her under the half-moon light. This happens sometimes, and when she’d been younger Runaan had explained that there was more to a moonshadow elf, more to emotion, than simply how much could be seen. It had sounded wise and cryptic then. Now, she mused, she wasn’t so sure he hadn’t just said something to return her focus to her training.

Still, whenever this boon does come along, she relishes it, like a child bestowed a special treat. There is a bounce in her step, and she feels almost playful. She wants to run through the trees at breakneck speeds, dodging and panting and laughing until her lungs can’t handle it any more. Not the proper way she was taught, no stealth or efficiency, just the wild freedom she missed out on.

Sure, the little pangs are there in the back of her mind. Runaan is probably gone, her whole team, really, and she is to blame. She was trained since childhood to be a killer, something that meant she had not experienced the carefree upbringing of others her age. And here she was, miles and miles from her home, with a tremendous undertaking still looming overhead. But right now, she couldn’t do anything about any of it, and it would be a shame to sully this joy pulsing in her veins.

\----

The moon is at its zenith when they strike up conversation beyond the simple exchanges they’d made setting up camp. After some prodding, Callum reluctantly shares the despondent thoughts echoing around in his mind, and Rayla considers them carefully in silence. 

The night breeze rustles the grasses around them, and she finally speaks up.

“You know, we moonshadow have a saying.” She gestures to sky above them. “You can view the moon as waxing or waning.”

He stares at her for a moment as the words finally settle in his brain with a click. “We have a similar saying, actually. But it’s about a glass.”

She nods in acknowledgment, urging him to continue.

“I mean, that’s basically all it is. If you’re a pessimist, you’ll always see what’s missing. If you’re an optimist, you see what you have.”

She hums. “I guess that’s sort of similar, yeah. But I think the moon is more complex than that, you know? Like, there are all these layers to the metaphor.”

Now it is his turn to nod her along. 

“On the surface,” she continues, “you have that same idea. Are you looking on the dark side of things, or the bright side? But then, we don’t have any control over the moon, like you would with your glass metaphor. You can’t pour out the light of the moon, and you can’t force more of it to shine. Our view of it depends on where it sits in the sky, and when we happen to be looking at it.”

“Like a whole other layer of perspective,” he says quietly, staring upwards.

“Exactly!” She hops up and begins pacing, the energy she’d felt earlier resurging as her mind races to stay ahead of her mouth. “So, it’s not just our perspective that comes into play, but really that our perspective is affected by our environment. We don’t have control over some things, but we can choose what to make of what we do see.”

Callum is quiet, gazing intently at the moon above them. Rayla plops down next to him, jostling his shoulder with her own.

“Has my deep elven philosophy caused your brain to melt?” she teases.

“No. Actually, I was thinking of what you said, and remembering Lujanne’s lesson about the Moon Arcanum. How it’s all about seeing truths. Or,” he pauses, scratching the back of his head as though trying to jostle the memory, “I guess, the difference between appearance and reality. She said that you can only know the appearance itself; you can’t ever touch the reality that lies beyond our perception.”

Rayla hums non-commitally beside him, bringing him back to the present.

“Is that how it is for you, too?” he asks, turning to face her. His melancholy has retreated in the wake of the conversation, this insight into culture and Arcanum and _Rayla_.

He watches as her face runs through a series of minute fluctuations while she considers his words, eyes shifting slightly, almost imperceptibly narrowing, the barest twitch of a cheek muscle beneath her markings, a hint of motion in the corners of her mouth. Finally, she seems to have settled on her answer.

“I’ll admit that I take Lujanne’s… advice with a certain amount of dubiousness, but yeah, I guess in this case I can see where she’s coming from. I’ve tried to explain it to you before, but I’m afraid I’m not very good at putting it into words.” She huffs, and swivels her body to face him fully. “It’s like, ugh, imagine if – no, wait – pretend you could –”

Callum can’t help but chuckle as she gestures wildly, her animated frustration striking some chord deep in his belly. Before he realizes it, his laughter has grown louder and apparently become contagious as Rayla joins him. They’re leaning on each other for support, him to the side, and her resting her forehead against his shoulder, caught in a vicious cycle of renewed mirth each time they make eye contact, and he can feel his heart lightening with each gasped breath. He can’t say why this has set him off – he’s used to her mannerisms, after all the time they’ve spent in each other’s company – but maybe it is something about the absurdity of it all crashing down around him: they’re two teenagers, on a dangerous mission, running from loss and through uncertainty with only each other. And here they are, with all that weight on their shoulders, getting lost in the hypotheticals of the Moon Arcanum and deep philosophy about perspective. As if this was the important stuff; not discussing strategy, or Zym’s care, or what they will do if they succeed. When they succeed. A pair of kids trying to find a way to articulate their place in the universe, and failing.

And it dawns on him that he is okay with that. Sure, he could be frustrated. He has every right to be. This mission is difficult, and he isn’t trained for this level of wilderness survival or demanding travel. He still hasn’t really had the full time to sit down and grieve properly, or come to terms with the whirlwind of events that has set him on this path. Every day feels a little more like everything could come unraveling at a moment’s notice – but it doesn’t. And he has to admit, looking at his companion by his side, still wiping an amused tear out of the corner of her eye, that an awful lot of that probably has to do with her.

“Hey, Rayla?” 

She meets his gaze, smile still lingering on her lips. “Yes, sad prince?”

He feels the corner of his mouth turn up at her moniker of endearment. It’s her own way of gentle acknowledgement when he’s feeling down, which he had been earlier. But now, he shakes his head, letting her know he’s past it.

“I think I get the gist of this whole moon thing after all.” 

“Oh, really?” She leans forward, bracing an elbow on her crossed legs, and her chin on her fist. “Do tell.”

“I’m sure I won’t do it proper justice,” he begins, and she waves him on with her other hand, “but… well, we make our own truth. If we want to see the world as scary, or hard, or cruel, then we will. But I think, if we want to see the beauty in the world, and the good, then we can. And that becomes our reality. Sure, it doesn’t change what is actually happening; maybe some bad things are happening, or sad things. Betrayal. Loss.” He can feel the tickle at the back of his throat, the sting in his eyes at the thought. Then, he meets her eyes again, and the feelings subside. He continues. “That just means they’re part of the shadow on the moon, right? It isn’t completely full, and heck, sometimes it might be a lot closer to just a thin crescent. But boy, those parts that are lit up, those are the parts that catch your eye. That’s the part you should look at.”

By the time he finishes, his gaze has drifted up to the sky, drinking in the subject of his pondering. Now, he turns his eyes back to Rayla, who has remained uncharacteristically quiet since he first began.

She hasn’t moved, but her posture has softened, as has her expression. There was something he couldn’t quite make out in her eyes, glinting beneath the reflected moon light. It makes something in his chest feel warm.

He smiles at her, holding out his hand. She pauses, then places hers in it, giving him a reassuring squeeze.

“You know what?”

“Hmm?”

“I feel like,” he says softly, squeezing her hand back and returning his gaze to the sky, “as long as I’ve got _you_ by my side, that moon is always going to be half-full.”  
There’s a pause, and he feels her hand tense slightly in his own before it relaxes and grips his even tighter than before. Chancing a quick glance, he thinks he sees a dusting of color on her cheeks as she eyes their entwined fingers. Finally, she speaks.

“Same for me, you big dummy,” she jokes softly, scooting back to his side. “Guess we’re stuck with each other.”

Their hands are still together.

“Stuck, huh?” He jostles her shoulder with his own. “I guess that’s one perspective.”

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, feedback is always a gift. Lemme know thoughts, comments, corrections, etc, and thanks for reading.


End file.
